The Club No One Wants to Join

Hi Everyone,
I'm Melinda, I lost my mom to Cancer on June 13th, 2006. She had cancer for two years before it took her. She started to get really bad in March and then passed away. Even tho I knew she would die from it, it was still a huge shock she died. I didn't think the MY mother could die...didn't that only happen to other people.

I'm trying to cope, as best I can. I have custody of my little brother who was 10 when our mom died, I had a huge custody fight for him...something our mom wanted so he could stay with our family.
I'm trying to get back to my life, I had put it on hold for most of my mom's sickness. I was with her in Nova Scotia when she died and my husband was home in Calgary.
I try to understand why I was left alone with her with two small children, my son was just under two when she passed. I had no help and well when I hear someone died or is dying of cancer, my heart aches for them and to know that I had no help while my mom was sick makes me so angry, but at the same time I'm lucky cause i got to spend so much time with her alone and it was wonderful.
I miss my mom very much and ache till the day I can see her again.

however, she lost her mom to TB when she was but a child and because of it, was taken away from her father and raised by a domineering and OLD grandmother in Scotland.

It was not the life she was supposed to have.
She was never allowed to say goodbye to her mom and has never really come to terms with her passing.

Her grief is stronger now more than ever.

The stories in Motherless shake you.
I am in awe of the honesty.

My mother is 87 and on Hospice. I have been losing her for many years as she suffers from dementia. It is a very painful process. She is now in heart failure and has trouble understanding what is happening. Our bookclub met last night, we read Saturday by Ian McEwan and in his book he visits his mother with dementia and he says that he visits because she enjoys the emotional comfort even though she does not always know who he is. That is why I go so often, but it is hard, it is dying by inches. I worked in Hospice and volunteered after I retired and yet this is still very difficult. But thank God for the support of the Hospice staff Without them it would be much harder.

So I wanted to thank everyone who has shown support thus far. There are many in the queue, and I'm so happy and excited about this site. Not just for my own healing, but for those that have written in. Thanks for being fearless - I hope it helps you.
Karen
xo

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Troll Baby ( http://www.troll-baby.com/ )

Motherless ( http://www.themotherless.com/ )

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It's definitely the club nobody wants to be in. I've been in it for 26 years. Motherless is a wonderful site because it gives people in the club a place to go and get all those feelings out that we often keep to ourselves because we don't want to be a drag or burden other people with our sad stories. But the people in the club...they understand.

Izzy ( http://izzymom.com )

For many of us, I believe it is that "absence of a parental relationship that we never had" that is key. Especially in our current culture, when so many assume we had loving, support, hell present parents.

Coming to grips with that absence (whether from chemical dependency, emotional inavailability, illness or death) especially in a culture that emphasizes the value of the roles, THAT'S the challenge. That's where the anger, the depression, the soul-hole grows. I've been working on this for over 25 years.. and I'm nowhere near successful yet.

Debra
A Stitch In Time ( http://astitchintime.blogspot.com )
Deb's Daily Distractions ( http://debsdistractions.blogspot.com )

... and though she's in her seventies, and has a few health issues, she looks set to be with us for a good while yet. I appreciate that the site deals with mothers - but I imagine that many of the emotions expressed are applicable to fathers. In my case, I feel that I never really had a father - there was a sperm donor who lived in the same house as my Mum, and that was it. I had minimal interaction with it while I lived there, and none at all once I moved out, nearly 25 years ago. I shed no tears when it died, a couple of years ago, and have never been told where it lies.

So while I do not mourn the passing of a parent, I certainly regret the absence of a parental relationship that I never had. If I had a pound for the number of people who've blamed the lack of a father figure in my life for "how I turned out"... meh. I never lacked for strong male figures in my life, so I completely refute that notion.

Personally, I felt nothing but relief when it finally died. Not least because the enormous strain of looking after an increasingly invalid and incontinent drunkard whose life-long fixation with shovelling booze down its neck was the most important thing in its life has now been removed from her my Mum's shoulders. Rotten parents don't just adversely affect their children.

Blog: Multidimensional.Me ( http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/ )

I will rest easier when the time comes. I have yet to expand on that at the site, but that is the cold truth.

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Troll Baby Graphics ( http://www.troll-babygraphics.com/ )

I was motherless before my mother died, infact decades before she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. I was motherless when she was still young and healthy but incapable of anything approaching emotionally supportive mothering. I figure I'll it will do me good to write out some of my anger.

For me, my mother's death was a welcome, like finally getting released from a private prison.

Debra
A Stitch In Time ( http://astitchintime.blogspot.com )
Deb's Daily Distractions ( http://debsdistractions.blogspot.com )

I'm only writing under Jane there to avoid my mother googling me, which she might never do anyway. That is all. Carry on.

Thank you Jenn - your post is amazing and beautiful!

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Troll Baby ( http://www.troll-baby.com/ )

Troll Baby Graphics ( http://www.troll-babygraphics.com/ )

My mother died in 1998. She was in her seventies, but no one in my family ever imagined she would die that young because she had always been such an active, alive person. When she died at first I felt like the pain would never go away, I missed her so much. Of course over time you come to terms with things, but even now I have tears in my eyes as I type this, missing that feeling of total unconditional love I always got from her. I feel very lucky to have had a mother (and father) who was such a wonderful person.

The mother of one of my very best friends just died a few days ago and I think it really helped her for me to say "I know exactly how you feel."

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen ( http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com )

I lost my Mom to cancer just a few years ago and have been composing a post on motherless-ness in my head for quite some time. It is true that the heavy weight seems to lighten when I connect with another motherless mother.

Thank you for sharing this blog and inspiring me to channel the post to my keyboard.

Cool People I Know ( http://www.coolpeopleiknow.com )